As Ryan rode toward the ridge, he saw Joe suddenly stiffen, point and shout. He gestured to Ryan and the people below to increase their pace.
“Now what?” J.B. demanded, riding up beside Ryan. “Has he sighted his valley yet? He should have. This is the fourth day.”
“No, something’s wrong,” Ryan replied, kneeing his horse forward.
They reached Joe at the very crest of the ridge. From there they looked northward toward another and parallel mountain range. Its highest, most northern peaks were snowcapped, and beyond them was a stupendous vista of other, smaller ranges, probably extending into Canada.
A deep, thickly wooded gully yawned between the crest on which they stood and another rocky rampart. The tall trees were fir and pine and poplar, and the ground was carpeted with high grass.
“Your rifle!” Joe shouted as Ryan and J.B. rode up. “Shoot them quickly!”
Ryan followed Joe’s pointing finger to the gully below. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted two dark shapes skulking through a glade.
“You mean the wolves?” he asked.
“Yes. You must kill them or our danger is great!”
Joe was in deadly earnest, his jet black eyes gleaming with fear.
Ryan drew the Steyr from its saddle scabbard and shouldered it, peering through the scope. Despite the dimming light, the laser image enhancer brought the animals into sharp focus.
The nearer wolf was close to the six-hundred-yard range. He centered the crosshairs on the furry skull, wondering about Lakota superstitions. From what Mose Autry had said about Amerindian beliefs, wolves were respected to the point of reverence. Joe’s fearful demand that they be killed made no sense, regardless of his enmity with the Wolf Soldier society.
“Why do you want them chilled?” J.B. asked. “They’re too far away to bother us.”
“They’ll take word of our coming to Ti-Ra’-Wa,” Joe answered grimly. “Hurry, Ochinee.”
Ryan’s finger tensed on the Steyr’s trigger. The wolfs skull was framed perfectly for a lethal head shot. Suddenly the animal glanced up. There was a swift flash of intelligence, of understanding in the green-gold eyes. In those eyes Ryan saw no malice, and moreover, he recognized them.
On impulse Ryan shifted the rifle’s position a fraction of an inch and squeezed the trigger. The Steyr cracked, and a plume of dirt spouted between the wolfs forepaws. Both animals sprang backward and raced into the dappled shadows between the trees.
Joe clenched his fists and glared at Ryan. “You deliberately missed! Now they’ll”
His lips clamped tight over his next words, and he made a visible effort to repress his anger.
“Now they’ll what?” Ryan demanded. “What can wolves do but act like wolves?”
He didn’t add that he suspected the wolf named Blood-sniffer had spared his life in Amicus, a decidedly unlupine act.
Joe didn’t answer. His fierce obsidian eyes swept over the figures of Jak, Doc, Mildred and Krysty and the two pack mules as they topped the crest of the ridge.
“We can’t camp anywhere near here now,” he said quickly. “We must keep moving through the night and moving fast. The soldiers will be out to cut us off now their scouts have taken back word of our arrival.”
Ryan slid the rifle back into its scabbard. “We’re not moving at all until we hear some explanations.”
“All will be made clear when we reach Ti-Ra’-Wa.”
Ryan shook his head. “You’ve been saying that for days. You’ll fucking well make it clear here and now. It seems like you want us to get involved in something more than an intertribal conflict about high laws and low laws. Straight tongue, or we’ll backtrack out of here.”
Joe smiled humorlessly. “You’re forgetting about the gold, aren’t you?”
“Don’t think we’re so greedy you have us where you want us. Curiosity drove us most of the way. You need us worse than we need you. Talk, or we ride out.”
Joe eyed the six people, his mind obviously gauging and weighing Ryan’s threat. Then he shrugged.
“There is no time to tell you everything. We must move fast or we die.”
“Then talk fast,” Jak said.
Joe opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head and sighed. “I’ve told you about the two factions, the Wolf Soldiers and the Cavern Keepers. My faction believes in healing the Grandmother Earth so that all men and women may benefit from the restored earth energies. But Pizi, Sisoka and the Wolf Soldiers aspire to keep the planet the way it is, so the entire world will always be a Deathlands. The earth will never recover from the nuking, and it will continue to be a rad-blasted nightmare.”